


To live another day

by cloverhunter95



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Begins post season 3, Caves, Flashbacks, Gen, Injury, POV Viren (The Dragon Prince), Was drafting a larger fic and this emerged, Will keep as one-shot until then
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverhunter95/pseuds/cloverhunter95
Summary: Viren came close to dying in a cave once—or twice now, he figured. The first time he was with Harrow. They were just boys at the time. Younger than Claudia even.
Relationships: Harrow & Viren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	To live another day

**Author's Note:**

> So I just finished watching Dragon Prince two weeks ago, fell in love with Viren's characterization, and was inspired to pick up writing fanfiction for the first time in a verrry long time. As mentioned in the tags, this came out of a much larger fic that I'm still in the early stages of writing that should follow Viren post season 3. I expect to edit this a lot as that tale starts to grow, but thought I'd post this more flashback-y part as it's own thing for now to keep the momentum going. Enjoy!

With his back sprawled against the floor of the cave, Viren watched his chest rise and fall slowly, illuminated in soft purple light. Everything felt…heavy. Blood pounded behind his eyes. His nostrils stung and stank of sulfur. And across the whole of his body his skin felt raw and tingly, like new flesh beneath an unhealed blister. And yet, it was a miracle. Claudia—clever girl, she—oh, Claudia.

How did she do it? Of course, from an academic standpoint there must have clearly been some human sacrifice—that much was obvious, and to Viren rather beside the point. But dark magic of this magnitude? Necromancy? Even he never dared. Of what cost was this to Claudia? What did she give—what did she lose to have done this?

To have saved him?

A wave of nausea rushed over Viren. He gagged and crumpled onto his side to keep from choking on the bile. Life’s…simple joys, he thought to himself before passing out.

***

Viren came close to dying in a cave once—or twice now, he figured. The first time he was with Harrow. They were just boys at the time. Younger than Claudia even. It was the solstice festival, and the royal family invited Viren to join Harrow at the Banther Lodge for the celebrations. Early into their stay, the two heard tell from a minstrel of a nearby cavern that was home to schools of fire salamanders.

Viren, who had by then already grown tired of losing snowball fights to the young prince, convinced Harrow to join him in looking for the fire salamanders. He advised Harrow that they would be a great source of entertainment for the festival. How cool would it be to illuminate the whole lodge with a large enough jar of them? To shock the baker by hiding them in his oven and letting them skitter all over the jelly tarts? Most importantly, the fire salamanders would certainly win them the attention of Opeli who, at two years their senior, had recently acquired breasts.

Though Harrow was outwardly hesitant to skirt his ceremonial responsibilities at the festival, he found Viren’s counsel thoroughly convincing, and early next morning the pair of them snuck out of the lodge with a pack stuffed with torches, waterskins, jelly tarts, and the biggest jar they could find.

The minstrel had warned them that while the cavern itself was just a short hike away, once they entered it would take a few hours of walking to reach the underground pond where the salamanders lived. Having left so early, it was still dark when the two boys began their descent into the cavern. Too cold and still too tired to talk, they stayed close together and carefully followed Viren’s torch spell, hearing nothing save the crunch of ice and the patter of stones beneath their feet.

The deeper the boys climbed the warmer it became. After walking for some time and carefully sliding down a few ledges, the boys eventually reached the underground pond. It was late morning, and the space was partially illuminated by a small gap high above in the cavern ceiling, forming a skylight. Pleased, Viren dispelled his torch light and the boys scrambled over the rocks chasing salamanders until they nearly collapsed in exhaustion.

“Incredible,” said Harrow, his eyes fixed on their catch. He was splayed out on a large rock at the edge of the water, watching the jarred salamanders scuttle over each other and glitter in the sunshine—orange, yellow, purple. Beside him, Viren was beginning to doze off.

“Viren?” Harrow said, nudging his friend awake.

“Hrmph—what is it, your majesty?” Viren shook himself awake and stretched out in the sun. Harrow rolled his eyes.

“They don’t glow”

“Yeah—so what?” said Harrow.

“You said that fire salamanders glow.” said Harrow.

“Did I?” asked Viren. He crossed his arms, considering it for a moment. “Oh, I know,” he said, turning to face Harrow. “Glow toads.”

“Glow toads?” asked Harrow, his eyes still fixed on the salamanders.

“Yeah—I must have mixed the two up. Glow toads glow. Salamanders kind of sparkle, withstand fire, and you know—that” Viren said, gesturing to an orange salamander near the bottom. It coughed and filled the jar with a plume of ash and sparks.

“Ah, I see,” said Harrow, thinking for a moment. “I guess we won’t be able to light up the Banther Lodge then?”

“Probably not” said Viren.

“But we can still prank the baker?” asked Harrow.

“We can.”

“And we can still show them off to Opeli?”

“Absolutely,” said Viren.

The two turned quiet. Harrow continued to study the salamanders, and Viren pretended to fall asleep again. At that age the two of them had little experience with real magic. The court mage at the time (who Viren would later regard as a talentless hack)—did little more than concoct bitter potions of his own design and proclaim their virtues in dispelling rheumatism, gout, fevers, and insomnia. Viren, his apprentice, was growing impatient with his lessons in what felt like the most rudimentary spellwork and had begun to gravitate towards self-study. But neither he nor Harrow had much firsthand exposure to magical creatures.

Though Harrow was no mage, he held the jar with such enchantment. Viren watched orange sparks reflect in his friend’s green eyes, and he held back a smile. This—this was magic, he decided.

***

Later, the light began to dim in the cavern. A cloud must have passed overhead.

“We should go,” said Viren. Harrow nodded in agreement and packed the jar of salamanders away. As they began their climb back to the mouth of the cave, the boys soon noticed that the return would be more difficult than their hike that morning. It was an ascent for one thing, but in their time underground, the ice and snow near the surface melted and trickled below. The rocks had become slick with water and grime.

The further they climbed the air grew colder, and their breath began to fog. After some time, they arrived at a steep slope. They had jumped down these rocks easily that morning, but the way back up would require some small amount of strength and strategy. Harrow climbed it first as Viren stood below, illuminating his path. Once he reached the top, Harrow lit a real torch from his pack so that Viren could use both hands to climb. It was a difficult trudge. Viren was not as strong as Harrow, and he struggled to generate the necessary force to propel him onto some of the necessary foot and handholds. It didn’t take him long to slip.

“Crap!” Viren yelled as his foothold gave out from under him. He scrambled desperately for something to hold onto, but succeeded only in scraping his nails against stone, filling them with dirt and moss. He tumbled down the slope, his torch spell sending spirals of light across the walls of the cave. Like an idiot, he tried to break his fall with his outstretched hand, and his elbow snapped immediately. The next thing he remembered was a loud crash from above, and that he had barely enough time to cover his head with his good arm before being hit with a shower of dirt and stones.

Soon, all was quiet. Viren got up from the rubble and carried his arm gingerly at his side. His elbow was shattered and twisted. He re-ignited the torch spell in his other hand and looked to the top of the slope. It would be impossible to get back up on his own.

“Harrow!” he called out. “Go back to the Banther Lodge and get help! My arm is broken, but I’ll be fine. Just get help.” There was no response. Of course. He must have already left. Harrow’s smart and responsible. He’ll be back in a few hours, Viren decided. But he then heard a groan to his left. Harrow was flat on his back a short distance away, covered in a blanket of earth and pebbles.

“What are you doing down here?” Viren shouted, kneeling to the prince’s side. “You were fine—you had already made it to the top!”

“Ran down to get you…stupid. Must have tripped.” That must have been the crashing sound. Harrow’s eyes were clenched shut and his voice sounded strained and tired. An ugly bruise was blossoming at his temple.

“Are you ok?” asked Viren despite knowing the answer.

“—m’alright. Just knocked my head is all.” Harrow tried to stand up, but as soon as he was upright, he threw up and collapsed again. Shit.

“You idiot,” said Viren. “Just uh, just stay put ok? I’ll fix this.” Harrow grunted in annoyance, but soon shut his eyes and started breathing steadily, fast asleep. Viren was all alone.  
He sighed, took off his cloak and wrapped it around Harrow. It was only getting colder and lying down wasn’t going to do much to preserve his body heat. And, of course, Harrow was the prince. Not some useless apprentice to some useless mage.

He shined the light up the slope again. The color of the rocks, the shape of the passage—Viren vaguely recalled it from the morning. The first hour or so of their descent had been on largely level ground. Until this point. But with the condition they were both in, even if they somehow made it up the slope, he estimated it would still take at least twice that much time to exit the cave and another hour or two to make it back to the lodge. The thought tickled up his spine: he was going to die here.

Viren shook the thought away. He may have been just an apprentice, but he was still a mage. All he needed was a creative solution. What spells had he learnt? Stirring potions, no. Sweeping, no. File sorting, definitely not. Levitation could work—oh but wait, he needed a hawk’s wing for that. Could he heal them both? No, that was outside his resources and far beyond his skill, and the last thing he wanted to do was accidentally crush Harrow’s skull.

He was thinking about it the wrong way. Trying to remember the right spell was useless if he didn’t have the materials to make it happen. What did he have to work with?

Of course! But where were they?

Viren found the pack near Harrow’s feet, almost completely buried in rubble. Opening it, he saw that the jar had broken and what remaining salamanders were there were now crawling around with abandon. He counted six, and shut the pack tightly. He’d never made his own spell before, and he didn’t want to waste a single one of them.

He closed his eyes to think. Fire salamanders had the sun arcanum. Viren was comfortable with a number of fire spells—the torch spell, for example—and the salamanders would provide him power and control. He could make some sort of signal, perhaps?

Feeling strangely confident, Viren opened the pack and cradled out the six squirming salamanders. Careful to hold them tightly by their tales, Viren rehearsed the incantation in his head and when he felt comfortable enough with the pronunciation, said it aloud slowly.

“Emoc ot pleh rof su ot htap a thgil” Almost immediately, an orange light engulfed the salamanders, and Viren felt them sizzle away in his hand. The light filled the cave, shooting up the slope and went who knows how far, but Viren had no time to celebrate. He felt his eyes burn and his skin go dry, and then he too was unconscious.

He awoke two days later at the Banther Lodge with slight headache and his arm in a sling. Despite Harrow’s dreadful condition in the cave, two days’ rest had done him well, and he ran to Viren’s room as soon as he heard his friend was awake. His head wrapped in bandages but his voice energetic and warm as always, Harrow informed him that some hunters had found them late in the night after noticing a strange light coming from the cave mouth.

“You don’t say?” said Viren. Did Harrow ever consider what or who might have caused the light? He found a water glass on his bedside table and took a much-needed sip. His mouth tasted like hay.

“I mean, I don’t remember anything since you fell. But apparently they climbed down, recognized the sigil on my pack, pulled us out of the cave, and rode us back here straight away. We sure made out lucky, didn’t we?” said Harrow.

“Yeah. Real lucky,” said Viren, taking another gulp of water. Harrow had no idea. Should he tell him about his spell? A strange, unfamiliar part of Viren told him that he should be irritated. That Harrow should be thanking him, not those stupid hunters, and certainly not luck. He brushed the thought away.

“Oh, and we lost the salamanders,” said Harrow. “The jar broke and they must have run off. That’s too bad, right? It would have been cool to show them to Opeli.” Viren nodded. He felt off. Like there was a thick knot in the middle of his back lightly tugging at all the muscles in his body. He felt that if he didn’t think about it, the knot would gradually pull his mouth into a grimace and his brows into a furrow.

“Hey, cheer up!” said Harrow, shaking Viren’s uninjured shoulder. “We made it out, didn’t we? Once we’re all better, we’ll think of other tricks to play.” Viren smiled. He could count on Harrow to make him feel better. As long as he had Harrow, he could keep that knot at bay. Viren held his water glass up as if for a toast.

“To live another day” said Viren.

“To live another day” said Harrow.


End file.
